Kendrick Lamar returns with Drake’s new speech ‘6:16 in LA’ after ‘Euphoria’

May 3, 2024 Vaseline stjohnson 0

play

Kendrick Lamar took a page from Drake’s playbook and dropped back-to-back tracks against the Canadian rapper.

Following a surprise release of his brutal track “Euphoria” on Tuesday, the Compton, California native dropped “6:16 in LA” on his Instagram on Friday morning. The song’s title is a reference to a song format that Drake is known for popularizing, including “6PM in New York” from “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” to “8am in Charlotte” from his recent album, “For All the Dogs.”

“It’s survival,” Lamar opens the track. “I think someone is lying. I smell someone lying.”

The 3 minute 44 second track art includes a photo of a black Maybach glove. Rick Ross, who entered the convoluted rap fray last week with “Champagne Moments,” is one of the founders of the rap label Maybach Music Group.

What does ‘6:16 in Los Angeles’ mean? Fans analyze Kendrick Lamar’s latest Drake speech

‘6:16 in LA’ Lyrics: Kendrick Lamar Says Drake’s Label OVO Is ‘Working for Me’

Lamar begins the song talking about buying yachts and trips to Ibiza, in what may be a nod to Ross’s “luxury rap” musical style.

“Who am I if I don’t go to war?” she raps, then adds that messing with “good people makes good people come out to bat.”

Lamar attacks Drake’s label and team, rapping, “Did you ever think OVO is working for me?” before calling Drake a “fake thug.”

He continues: “I hate bullies/You must be a terrible person/Everyone inside your team whispers that you deserve it.”

Lamar then says he was “having fun” with the tit-for-tat until Drake put “money on the streets” to get dirt on the “Like That” rapper. But Lamar claims Drake “lost money because they came back without receipts.”

“I’m sorry to live a boring life / I love peace / But war is ready if the world is ready to see you bleed,” he says.

Lamar continues the offensive on OVO. “If you were smart, you would have realized that your entourage is just to rip you off,” he raps, claiming that Drake has 100 people on salary, and “20 of them want you like a casualty.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper ends the song with reference to Michael Jackson’s hit “You Are Not Alone”: “It’s time for you to look around and see who’s around you / Before you realize you’re gone just, ask what Mike would do.”

Both Drake and Lamar have referenced Jackson in their music, and Drake said he’s “one hit” away from Jackson’s record of 13 Billboard Hot 100 hits in his October track “First Person Shooter.” Drake has since linked to Jackson with that same song. Drake also sampled the late singer’s voice for the 2018 song “Don’t Matter to Me” from an unreleased 1980 studio session.

Lamar followed up with Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” rapping, “Prince outlived Mike Jack.”

Kendrick Lamar’s Back-to-Back ‘6:16 in LA’, ‘Euphoria’ Reviews Follow Drake’s Reviews

On “Euphoria,” Lamar praised Drake’s song “Back To Back” by saying that he “liked that record.” The 2015 single was a diss track aimed at rapper Meek Mill, and was Drake’s follow-up to his first diss, “Charged Up.”

Now, Lamar has released his own back-to-back album. On “Euphoria,” Lamar called Drake a “hustler,” criticized his relationship with his son and invoked the Toronto-born rapper’s feud with Pusha T.

He continued: “How many more fairy tale stories about your life until we’ve had enough? How many more black features until you finally feel like you’re black enough?”

Drake, who is biracial, was previously called out by Pusha T in a similarly vicious dispute over a photo of him in blackface. After Pusha T used the image as the cover of his song “The Story of Adidon,” Drake said the blackface photo was from 2007, when he was working on a “project about young black actors struggling to get roles, “They were stereotypical and kind of cast.” Pusha T also revealed that Drake had a son, unbeknownst to the public at the time.

“Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA” follow Drake’s tracks “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” “Taylor Made Freestyle” was later pulled from streaming services after Tupac Shakur’s estate threatened to sue over its use of an AI voice impersonation. “The equally disheartening unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend of the heritage who has shown nothing but respect for Tupac and his legacy in public and private, compounds the insult,” a cessation and desistence of assets. per USA TODAY said.

Listen to ‘6:16 in LA’ by Kendrick Lamar

Listen to Lamar’s “6:16 in LA” on his Instagram.

Contributing: Brendan Morrow